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Earlier this month, New York photographer Hee Jin Kang woke up at 3 a.m. and went online to register her older parents for the coronavirus vaccine.
She has created accounts on five different websites, including portals for state-run vaccination programs, as well as hospitals, pharmacies and primary care facilities. After hours of switching between and refreshing different landing pages, she found time slots for both parents.
“It’s just crazy,” she said. ‘There is no central system. I just could not stop thinking. If you are not technically literate, it will just be impossible – it will make you jump through so many hoops. ‘
People across the United States have compared vaccination to a vaccine in recent weeks refresh a page for highly coveted concert tickets. In Michigan, a vaccine registration site crashed almost immediately after the state expanded vaccine access for people 65 and older. On the website, which processes 900 appointments on a typical day, more than 25,000 people tried to register. In Texas, one website completed 9,000 appointments in less than six minutes. Minnesota users have reported similar issues. Some Florida health departments use the Eventbrite ticket website, which raises concerns about ticket sales and sales.
The Trump administration promised in November that 20 million Covid-19 vaccines could be distributed by 2021. As of this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 18.5 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and about 3.2 million people have been fully vaccinated.
New doses of vaccines can be produced just as quickly, but supply is only part of the problem. For Americans whose vaccines are not regulated by their workplace, scheduling can be a major setback.
Most states have no central system for registering for appointments, and those that do exist are full of problems. Both of these hurdles have made it difficult for those who are not technically proficient and people who do not have time to refresh an online application all day, to get a potentially life-saving vaccine.
In fact, online reporting raises a number of ethical concerns, say public health experts. Most states in the US are in the second phase of vaccinations, which means that people aged 65 and older may be vaccinated. Susan Lee, an intern in primary care in New York, says it is difficult for elderly patients and others with little technological literacy. “The only elderly patients who could make appointments – my parents included – are those who can plead with someone,” Lee said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
In addition, millions of Americans do not have access to broadband internet, and only 51% of the elderly say they have high-speed Internet at home. These statistics are further influenced by race: only 58% of black Americans and 57% of Hispanics own a computer at home, compared to 82% of whites.
Biden has promised to spread vaccines to 1.5 m doses per day within the next three weeks and said that anyone who wants a vaccine will have access by spring, but America’s unbound healthcare system offers unique struggles. One of the only high-income countries in the world without universal health care, the US relies on a mix of private and public health resources. The logistical challenges are exacerbated by the fact that states under the Trump administration have rolled out their own plan to distribute vaccines with little national direction. The federal government has said the Trump administration has delayed hesitation to share data.
In a new 200-page report outlining a rollout of vaccines, Biden said his administration would facilitate ‘new technological solutions’ for planning Covid vaccines. “The federal government will provide technical support to ensure that these systems meet mission-critical requirements to support a robust response,” the report said.
The streamlining of the distribution and scheduling process of vaccinations as soon as possible will play an integral role in combating and ultimately ending the coronavirus pandemic, said Seju Mathew, a primary care physician and public health expert in Atlanta, Georgia.
“We’ve vaccinated 85% of the US to get herd immunity, so the next few weeks will be big,” he said. “The only way to deal with this deadly pandemic is to vaccinate people quickly.”
In the meantime, some states are taking action, private enterprises are taking action and community efforts are emerging. California, where the state government has been heavily criticized for the slow vaccination rates, has just launched a state-wide portal called My Turn that will warn residents of the vaccinations for vaccine. This comes after a website in California called VaccinateCA volunteered to call pharmacies across the state to determine which vaccines are being provided to whom and what they are learning.
Google announced on Monday that it will place vaccination locations on their Maps feature. Private companies such as ZocDoc, a platform used to register traditional doctor appointments, offer their infrastructure for planning vaccinations. ZocDoc works with major hospital systems and local governments to facilitate scheduling. Amazon has also offered to help with vaccine logistics and is submitting an official proposal to the Biden government, a spokesman said Saturday.
It is crucial that the government enables better scheduling because both vaccines approved in the United States – from Moderna and Pfizer – require two doses to be effective. Mathew, the primary care physician, said based on what he heard from news reports and directly from his patients, he was concerned that people who struggled to get an appointment for one shot would be more reluctant to make a follow-up appointment. plan.
“Planning a vaccine should be as easy as booking a ride with Uber or booking a dinner on OpenTable,” he said. “Otherwise we will lose patients.”
This would not be possible without a more streamlined technological approach, said Seema Yasmin, a physician and director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. The system should also keep in mind the inequalities in the US healthcare system and the spread of Covid-19 in the US.
“The same communities that die disproportionately to Covid-19 are vaccinated at lower prices than white and wealthy citizens,” Yasmin said. “If something as basic as the ability to discuss a vaccination appointment or to find out when you are eligible for a vaccine presents such major challenges, it can promote mistrust in the vaccination system and the vaccines themselves.”